this time around (we'll do it differently)
by scorchedtrees
Summary: AU: Bounty hunters Levi and Petra team up to capture infamous criminal Annie Leonhardt. Rivetra.


_A/N: Just randomly thought of this and I hope it's not too horrible lol._

* * *

He sees her long before she sees him.

At least she's pretty sure that's the case, because when he sits next to her at the counter and flips a coin at the barkeep, he says easily, "Drinks are on me."

Like they've spoken plenty of times before. Like they're old friends catching up over a round of ale, like she's met him long ago and they just happened to run into each other, like they aren't unspoken rivals who have never met.

She's heard of him, of course; his reputation far proceeds him, from one end of the godforsaken country to the other. She's just never had the pleasure of speaking with him face-to-face, but she's not a fool; she knows why he's here. They want the same thing, after all.

"One silver versus thirty thousand gold pieces," she says evenly, taking a sip of her diluted wine and keeping her eyes fixed on the dirty glasses decorating rack after rack behind the counter. "You must take me for a fool."

"Not at all," he says, and they never mentioned how low his voice is, how quietly it sinks into your chest, though he is only speaking next to her ear. "I hear you're clever."

She turns to look at him then, expecting to see the man all the bounty hunters whisper about, the man all criminals fear: short, dark-haired, a permanent downward turn of his lips, three long thin scars crisscrossing his cheek like someone tried to gouge out his eye and missed. That is exactly what she sees, but she did not expect the sharp silver-blue clarity of his irises, nor the nostalgia in them.

For the first time since she was eleven, a memory from before her time on the streets flickers in the back of her mind: those same eyes, pale and sorrowful, that same voice, murmuring against her skin, and she blinks, startled. The feeling fades and she shakes her head, unsure where it came from. She wonders if that wasn't a strange flash of clarity but what others call attraction, because she can say for certain she's never met this man before.

"What do you want?" she asks, turning back to face forward. The barkeep pushes two mugs of ale across the counter but neither of them touch the drinks.

He leans away; she can feel him surveying her, taking in details of her life hidden all over her body, his eyes stripping her secrets bare, but somehow it is not an uncomfortable feeling. After a moment, he says, "I saw you at the First Wall."

Petra tries not to glare; it's difficult. _Everyone saw me at the First Wall._

He snorts like he can hear her thoughts. "It was a good effort. Of course, Leonhardt got away, but she's always been a tricky one, hasn't she?"

"How many times have _you_ tried?"

"Several," he says casually. "I've followed her to each Wall and beyond, into the depths of Sina's underground, across the ocean once… nowhere near as public as you though."

She's never been on the ocean before; she's stood at its edge, watching ships pull up and cast off, seen children play in the mud by the docks and sailors cast ropes about and seagulls circle overhead, but never has she been on a vessel in the water. When she crosses rivers, she uses stone bridges. She doesn't trust wood.

"What do you want?" she repeats, chewing her lip.

"You've heard of me."

Of course she has. The infamous Levi, the bounty hunter no criminal is safe from, the man no being can elude. He's a tracking dog and a notorious killer all at once, and she supposes the world should be glad he uses his skills to gather bounties rather than body counts.

"And you're looking for me because…?"

For a moment, he doesn't say anything. Glasses clink and people mutter in the dingy little tavern, the door creaking with the arrival and departure of each patron. The scent of alcohol and cleaning solution is strong in the room, but it doesn't quite cover the stench of vomit, the smell of cigarette smoke and ashes.

"You're resourceful," he says at last. "You appeared out of nowhere, a little girl, and started collecting bounties. It's been years and you're still alive, still smart, and we both have one goal."

Petra is so surprised she laughs. "You want to work with me?"

"I don't work with anyone," he corrects her. "We'll pool our resources. Split the reward half-and-half."

"Who gets to take her head off and present it to the enforcers?"

That gives him pause; part of their occupation is about reputation as well. Whoever can claim to have collected Annie Leonhardt's bounty is sure to be feared.

"We'll see," Levi says eventually. "I was wondering what you knew; I didn't think she'd be at any of the Walls."

"Why not? There's nothing in this country for anyone except death."

"What do you say?"

She turns her head to look at him again; he's not really what she expected. Less cold, somehow, and less intimidating. She doesn't know him but she knows the stories, and Levi isn't the sort to ask for help from anyone, no matter what kind—so why does he want to partner up? Is this some sort of trap?

But bounty hunters don't do that; they aren't petty thieves killing each other for spoils. They kill out of necessity, out of greed too, she'll admit, but also necessity, because enforcers can't catch criminals themselves all the time and it's simpler to slit a throat, slice off a head, bring it in—one party gets the criminal, the other gold. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

The biggest bounty she's collected was two thousand gold pieces, stored in a dead man's vault in Stohess—thirty thousand is unimaginable. Even half of that, fifteen thousand, will be enough for her to quit her job and settle down. Find a respectable one instead, one suited for a woman her age, just to pass the time. Maybe marry and start a family.

The thought nearly makes her choke on her drink.

Levi watches her with his pale, flinty gaze as she coughs and swallows, swiping a hand across her burning eyes. After a moment, she cocks her head at him and grins.

"I say, buy me actual wine and we have a deal."

.

.

.

He must have far more money saved than she, considering his impressive list of criminals caught, but he always finds the shabbiest inns to stay at.

She's never worked with anyone in this business before—though according to Levi, they aren't working together; they're _pooling their resources_—and she doesn't quite know what to make of the situation. She has no memory of her childhood and her earliest recollections are of sleeping in abandoned warehouses and behind dumpsters, scavenging through garbage bins for food and waking at any moment with a pounding heart, a pocket knife clenched in her fist.

There have been people she trusted, other homeless children she grew fond of, but disease, starvation, or murder took them all. The first time she killed, she was fifteen, and after realizing how easy it was to take a life when that life did nothing but harm to others, she began eyeing the wanted posters outside the law enforcement stations.

She saved enough money to rent a ramshackle little apartment on the outskirts of Trost, then saved more and more until food and shelter became the least of her worries. All that time, though, she's been working solo, and suddenly having a partner or whatever Levi wants to think of himself as is strange.

_Just until Leonhardt's caught,_ he said, though at the rate things have been going since the first wanted poster for the young blond woman appeared two years ago, that might take a while. Her bounty started as a modest fifty silver pieces, then increased exponentially with the frequency and severity of her crimes.

"You know she's working for someone," Petra says as she and Levi drop their things off in a tiny little box hardly fit to be called a room. It's the first time they have to share a room due to lack of other serviceable ones and he made sure to ask for two beds. He doesn't strike her as the type to try anything, but she plans to sleep with a knife beneath her pillow and another tucked under the mattress just in case.

"Of course," he says, sitting on his bed and unsheathing the sword constantly at his hip to polish its blade. He hasn't taken any heads since the day they met, but it's something he does at least once a day, wiping fingerprints from the steel and cleaning smudges from its pommel like it is an obsession. Perhaps it is.

(She ignores the voice in her mind that whispers about how intensely he scrubs floors, too, how he insists on wiping blood from his blades even though it will dissipate soon enough—because she doesn't know him, not yet, and blood doesn't dissipate, anyway. It sticks and it stains and it never washes off, invisible beneath layer after layer of untouched skin.)

"The same people who sent that warning to the Walls two years ago, you think?"

He coughs something dry that might be a laugh. "Shit warning. They didn't do a thing."

"Maybe they're taking their time."

"Or maybe their bluff failed. No way they can break down each Wall."

"But Leonhardt nearly got into the First. They might be trying to break them down from the insides."

Levi doesn't say anything for a moment, his hands continuing to smooth a cloth over his vast collection of steel—he's unstrapped the knives on his belt now, as well as the ones hanging from the inside of his coat, and she counts seven daggers before getting distracted by the precise, even motions of his pale fingers, and then she looks away.

"I don't give a fuck," he finally says, "about this country or its damn Walls. I want Leonhardt dead."

It's personal then. She fidgets a little, unsure of what to say to that, because she's only after Leonhardt for justice (of course, the bounty is a nice touch as well). She sits on her own bed, painfully aware of how close it is to Levi's in the cramped room, and sighs.

"It's late," she says when he doesn't say anything else. She tugs her hair from its bun and runs her fingers through the tangled knots of copper. "I'm going to wash first."

He glances up, and his eyes freeze on her. It's that same look she saw when they first met—sharp yet amost nostalgic.

"What?"

He blinks, stares back down at his blades. "Nothing," he mutters, but she could swear she hears him add under his breath, "Your hair's longer than I remember."

She must have heard wrong, because that doesn't make sense—she just met him a few days ago—but at the same time it does, it makes too much sense, and she wants to ask him how he got those scars on his face.

She heads into the washroom instead.

.

.

.

The officers stationed at the First Wall aren't too pleased when two bounty hunters show up wanting to examine their security, but Levi's face is recognized—and so is hers, but luckily no one comments on it—and before long they are led by a lower-ranking officer deep into the heart of Sina's protection.

"You're well-known but you're still a glorified killer," Petra points out as they turn down stone hallway after stone hallway. Pale lanterns emit flickering light from sconces set six feet apart in the walls and the sound of their boots echo back at them. "Why did they really let us in?"

He shoots her a look she can't decipher. "Nothing escapes you."

_Except Leonhardt,_ she thinks, but she only says, "Answer me."

"A commanding officer owes me a favor," is all he will tell her, and when she demands to know which commanding officer—of the First Wall? Of all the king's law enforcement?—he only flicks her an irritable glare and jerks his head at the man walking four paces in front of them.

The path twists and descends, twists some more and then ascends again as they make their way towards the offices Levi wants to inspect, but Petra keeps careful track of how many turns they make, which directions they take, interesting grooves in the walls they pass. After scouting all corners of the city for the past few days, they've determined Leonhardt is long gone, but after discussing the criminal's possible motivations Levi decided to give the First Wall a closer look.

It's not exactly what Petra expected, but neither is she surprised—these Walls are older than the city of Sina itself and she didn't think to find anything grand. Water drips in some corners, plinking off the stone floor when it lands to form little puddles on the ground; there are no other sounds besides their footsteps. She's been working alone for so long she should be accustomed to the lack of conversation, but she supposes when given a chance to talk, she might as well take advantage of it.

"You've been across the ocean," she says, choosing a benign topic. "What's it like?"

"Full of water," Levi says without a hint of amusement.

She makes a face at him and he smirks a little. "Big. Blue. Why don't you cross it yourself?"

"I don't trust ships," she confesses. "Or wood, actually. It gets eaten away by termites; it gets burned down. I like brick and stone and steel."

"The Walls will be holes in the ground before any mason carves a stone ship that can sail two feet without sinking."

The officer in front of them stiffens a bit, likely at the "holes in the ground" comment, and Petra bites her lip to contain a snort. The Walls have been around so long, some people worship them as deities, and she wouldn't be surprised if this man is one of them.

"Where'd you go across the ocean?"

"Don't remember."

"I doubt that."

"Didn't stay long. City full of pickpockets and crowded marketplaces. Much more crowded than most of the ones here. There were talking birds." He sounds almost absentminded, as if his attention is caught elsewhere. His eyes travel back to the lanterns lining the walls, the cracks at the base of the stone, and fixate on something she can't make out.

"Stop," he says suddenly.

The officer turns back and frowns. "Beg pardon… sir"—the word is spoken dubiously—"but letting a civilian into the Wall is rare and they'll want to see you and have you state your business quick as you can before—"

"Shut up," Levi snaps, and it only takes a hand resting on the hilt of his sword to make the man fall silent with a squeak.

Petra wants to chastise him for frightening an innocent person—though she'd think of the officer as a civilian, not the other way around—but something is shifting in Levi's eyes, something like dawning insight, so she steps back and watches as he pauses before a lantern, studying the sconce it is secured to, pressing his fingers to the wall beneath it.

"How often are these repaired and maintained?"

"The Walls are as old as the country," the officer says, "and they've never had problems."

"Answer the damn question." Levi's hand falls to his sword again.

"There's no need to scare him."

"Routine checks are made twice a year," the officer stammers.

Levi seems to ignore them both. He sinks slowly to his knees, his fingers never leaving the wall, and raps his knuckles across certain parts of it, moving his hands back and forth as if searching for something. He touches faint seams in the weathered, cracked stone and nods once, then stands again.

"What is it?" Petra asks.

"Nothing," Levi says, then looks over her shoulder at the other man. "We won't need to meet with anyone after all," he says. "Don't bother showing us the way out." He turns and strides off the direction they came, and Petra gapes after him for a second before offering the officer an apologetic shrug and wave, then hurrying after her partner.

"Did you find something?"

"No."

She leaves him to his brooding silence until they exit the Wall and turn onto the main street that leads back to their inn. "Was there a passageway there?"

His lips tighten, all the answer she needs. "So that's how she got in in the first place," she muses. "And got out. I wonder when the passageways were built…"

"You can't tell anyone."

She frowns. "I wasn't going to, but we should let someone know soon—the Walls are what protect us from invaders. If you don't want to tell the officers there, then tell the commander who owes you a favor." She taps a finger against her chin in thought. "Actually, this almost proves she's working for someone, most likely the people who sent those threats two years ago. This might up her bounty."

"We're not telling anyone."

Petra resists the urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Yes, captain."

They are not alone, people still mingling outside and buying cheap dinners from food stalls lining the streets, the smell of sizzling meat and the sound of chattering voices light in the air, but when he turns to stare at her, his eyes are so intent it is like he can see nothing else. "What did you call me?"

"I was just joking," she says with a halfhearted smile, but she can't bring herself to make the expression genuine. For some odd reason her chest feels constricted, like someone has reached inside to grab her heart and squeeze it.

He tears his gaze away from her face and twists his mouth again in that indecipherable expression, and she spends half the night convincing herself it wasn't loss shining silver-blue in his eyes.

.

.

.

She expects them to investigate the passageways hidden in the First Wall the next chance they get, be it by legal means or not, but the next day Levi wakes her before the sun has fully risen and tells her to pack her things; they're traveling outside the Walls.

_I don't work with anyone,_ he said, and it's true—he's the one making decisions, and even though part of her protests her lack of say in their partnership, there is something strangely comforting, almost familiar about following his orders, so she does not complain. She does not know what she would normally do, as she has never partnered with anyone before, and she thinks she'd probably like her voice heard—but something in her gut trusts him, and her gut has never been wrong before.

Whereas the First Wall only protects Sina, large city it may be, the Second Wall spans over a dozen times that size, and the Third Wall the outlying provinces. Outside the Walls reside most of the businesses that trade with foreigners, and it is through canals winding through the Walls deep into the heart of the country that most people acquire foreign goods.

Petra is accustomed to paying carriage drivers to take her places when she is in a hurry to travel somewhere, but Levi insists on buying two horses. He doesn't stop anywhere to retrieve gold, so she is puzzled until she sees him scrubbing at dried blood on his sword later that night at another shabby inn, red-brown flakes in his fingernails and sticking to the soapy rag he is using.

"Who'd you turn in?"

"Swindler. They wanted him alive to hang for his crimes."

"Why'd you nick him then?"

"I didn't say I brought him in alive."

She does let herself kill, makes herself steel her heart and move her blade, but she much prefers it when criminals are wanted alive. It isn't too difficult to knock someone unconscious and truss them up, then alert authorities, and she finds that ultimately preferable to staining her hands and her soul, if the Wall worshippers are to be believed.

"Leohardt," she says, a new thought occurring to her. "She's wanted dead."

"She will be soon."

"You said 'we'll see,'" Petra says, remembering. "When I asked you who would take her head. But you want to, don't you? You want to kill her yourself."

Levi says nothing, but his hands go still. The blood is nearly all gone from his blade, most of it on the rag now, little spots of it smearing his fingers. She thinks of his voice, low and quiet and careless, _I don't work with anyone,_ and she swallows a lump in her throat.

"She killed people you care about," she murmurs.

When he turns to her, the cracks in his mask seem obvious—the way his eyes flicker, the way his lips slant, every slight flutter of his eyelashes. The scars on his face are pale but now they are dark against his white skin, and his fingers brush against them as he says, more to himself, "One for each person so I don't forget."

He leaves flecks of blood on his cheek, the burnt red stark against his colorless face, and Petra doesn't know why she does it, what force propels her to do so, but she stands and crosses the short distance of the room to sit next to him on his bed, pushing the sword away so she can wipe the color off his face with her own fingers. His skin is warm and makes something spark within her own.

"You realize," she says quietly, "we do have to tell someone, and soon. This business with the Walls—it's a matter of national security. They'll want Leonhardt for questioning, and headless corpses don't talk."

A muscle twitches in his jaw like he wants to disagree, but he doesn't. Because she's right and he knows it.

"We should tell someone," she presses. "What about the commander you know? He could do something about it."

"No."

She huffs, frustrated. "Then who? The local authorities? Do you trust anyone else?"

"Erwin—the commander—would probably be best," he says, slowly, like he is forcing the words out, "but…" He trails off.

"What?"

"It's illogical." He sits up straighter and only then does she realize her hands are resting against his thigh. She pulls them back quickly, willing her cheeks to stay cool. "You're right. I'll find him when we're outside the Walls—he's stationed there now; I was going to set a trap for Leonhardt but he can help. I suppose I just…"

Dread curdles her stomach; she doesn't want to hear his next words, doesn't want to listen to him say anything she doesn't understand but understands only too well. He speaks anyway. "I suppose I didn't want another scar."

Her heart is thumping somewhere at the bottom of her feet. "What do you mean?"

He returns to cleaning his blade, and with the sudden motion, the uncertainty is gone. "I don't know," he says, and neither does she.

.

.

.

The journey to the Third Wall is swifter on horseback, and outside a covered wagon, she admires the countryside they ride through, the cities and towns and farmsteads they pass, the miles and miles of road extending beyond the horizon. She's ridden before, but not much, and it takes her a few days to get used to the new soreness of her muscles, the rawness of her chafed thighs. Every night they stop, she asks Levi if he wants to wash first, but he always lets her use the hot water before him. One time she collapses across both their beds before he has finished, and when she wakes in the morning she finds him sleeping on the floor.

He looks curiously vulnerable when he sleeps, the shadows of his eyelashes on his skin and the lack of tension in his brow giving his face a younger, more innocent look. She wonders not for the first time how old he is, where he came from, and several times she nearly asks before remembering she has no interesting information to return.

There is an indifferent tone to his words, a constant apathy on his face, but underneath all that, she sees how his eyes shift and change, and she finds herself thinking she knows him, even though she doesn't really. He never mentions his past, never mentions anything about himself, but she watches him polish his blades and fold his clothes and curse under his breath and she finds his actions strangely endearing.

"You pretend not to care," she says one day as they stop to let their horses graze. Vast stretches of grasslands surround the road they ride on, empty of other travelers. They pass the occasional fenced-in pasture and small village, but the main roads within the Third Wall all lead to the port city of Shiganshina, and Levi is taking them around and beyond.

"About what?" He cuts an apple in half and tosses a slice to his horse, then holds out the other half to her. She takes it, careful not to touch his fingers.

"Everything." She shrugs. "Your job. Others' lives. Your horse." She nods at the brown stallion.

"What do I care about, then?"

He's humoring her, but she lifts her chin, refusing to feel mocked. "You act like you collect bounties for gold, but you don't actually care for gold. I know why you want to capture Leonhardt, but what about all the others? You care more than you'd like to admit."

Levi's horse nuzzles him and he pats its nose, face expressionless. She wishes she could capture the moment in a picture to show him later: the animal towering over him, its dark eyes serene, his own blank look and gentle hands.

"Why did you find me?" she blurts. "Really."

She didn't want to ask, not here, not now, not when they're still on their way and Leonhardt isn't behind bars yet, but she's considered the question since the first day he let her in his room and showed her the miniature armory he wears everywhere he goes, and the answer has always eluded her. One thing that makes Levi so notorious is how little people know of him, and he never goes around trying to make new acquaintances—yet he approached her, not the other way around.

"I told you," he says, each syllable halted, "I saw you at the First Wall."

"I'm sure you did." She forces herself to meet his gaze. "But it's not because I'm resourceful or anything."

He studies the hilt of the dagger still clenched in his left fist, like he doesn't have each carved pattern memorized, each swirl of steel imprinted in his mind. He's not going to answer, she resigns herself to the fact, but then he mutters, "I saw you."

"I know," she says with exaggerated patience.

"No." His jaw clenches. "At the Wall. I saw you and… I knew you."

_You don't,_ she wants to tell him, _even I don't know myself,_ because it's true; she has no recollection of her childhood and he never looks at her with recognition—but he's right, he knows her and she must know him, somewhere deep in her bones, imprinted in her mind, buried so far she can no longer find the root.

_It doesn't make sense,_ she wants to tell herself, _you're being ridiculous,_ but when she finally raises the slice of apple in her hand to her mouth and bites down, his eyes catch on the movements of her lips and she is struck with certainty that he's looked at her like that before, many times.

"I think I know you too," she says, and he nods.

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.

.

Commander Erwin Smith is tall, handsome, surprisingly young, charismatic as anyone she's ever met, and Petra doesn't like him.

That's not true—she likes him, and that is the problem. When he speaks, she can almost imagine a world free of murderers and rapists, a world where poverty and crime are no longer problems, but she has been a bounty hunter for over half the years she remembers of her life and she knows just how possible such a world is.

She can't trust a man who makes her see impossible things, and she can't trust a man whose smile looks like her own death warrant.

He is the commander outside the Walls, overseeing the enforcement of national laws in the strips of land between the Third Wall and the great ocean, and Petra wonders exactly what favor he owes Levi as he lets the two of them into his office. Levi must have never brought a companion with him before but Erwin—as he insists on being called—does not look surprised at all to see her.

"So you think she'll be traveling here," he says.

"It makes the most sense," Levi says, and he proceeds to explain, presenting the logic he and Petra worked out on the journey here. It was always the safest topic, easy to discuss sitting across the room on separate beds; she imagines any other subject might lead to a comforting hand on a shoulder, a quiet touch of shared pain or remembrance, and she doesn't want to imagine any further than that.

She lets them discuss the details, offers opinions and insight when asked, and Erwin gives them rooms in the officers' building and tells them to rest. He pauses before reaching for a second key, but she sees Levi gesture for another with an irritated flick of his finger.

He visits her room later that night anyway, and she can see his anxiety in the slant of his shoulders, the curve of his spine, the way his words tumble more gracelessly than usual from his mouth. "It's the right thing to do," she says, trying to put him at ease. "He's sent riders out to the Walls. One should have reached the Third already; they know to be discreet. They'll find any other passageways inside and be on the lookout for anything suspicious."

"Maybe," Levi says. "What about here?"

If whoever or whatever Leonhardt is working for is targeting the Walls, it's safest here—until she comes, anyway, but there are people prepared for her arrival. Petra tells him this, but none of the apprehension fades from his face.

"We've never captured her before. Who says it'll be different this time?"

"Hey," she says, bumping him with her elbow, "we're working together now and we've got the commander outside the Walls behind us too."

She means it as a joke, half-expecting him to mutter his _I don't work with anyone _line again, but his features pinch like someone shoved a lemon down his throat. "I trust Erwin," he says, "but not with this."

She understands; when she looks at the man, she can almost see an unmarked ditch in the ground, her body in it. But he is their best option right now. "Why not?"

He shakes his head and doesn't respond, but his fingers reach up to brush the scars on his face again, and Petra wonders why she suddenly feels the sorrow of those three lost lives as well.

.

.

.

Annie Leonhardt is spotted outside a jewelery store off the coast, and nearly half of Erwin's officers are dispatched to retrieve her.

"It won't work," Levi snaps, slamming his palms on the commander's desk and glaring up at the taller man. "She's not stupid. She'll notice so many people fanning across the city—_everyone_ will notice."

"Precisely," Erwin says, pulling a folder from a stack piled in front of him and opening it. There is a map printed on the pages inside. "She won't notice you and Miss Ral."

Something sours in the back of her mouth. "What did you call me?" she demands—not _who's that?_

He looks faintly surprised. "Pardon; I mistook you for the daughter of an acquaintance of mine, a man who works in the shipping business in Trost. His daughter disappeared a little over ten years ago—you look like an older version of her."

Petra can't speak, can't breathe, her throat going dry and her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest—until Levi tears the map from Erwin, places a hand against her back to steady her, and spits, "There isn't time for your games, old man. What do you want us to do?"

Erwin shows them the route they should take, the direction the other officers want to corner Leonhardt into, a market area lined with craftsmen's shops and stalls in the back, facing the docks. They are to split up and surround her there in a surprise attack, one distracting her as the other takes her down, and into custody once and for all.

"Don't think about what he said," Levi advises her as they slip outside, armed and silent. It is late afternoon, the sun still warm and shining between gaps in the buildings and trees, and she shivers and thinks of dying with sunlight in her eyes.

"I'm not," she assures him. There isn't time to think about anything other than the mission at hand, and once it's over, she will face any repercussions.

Something like a smile flits briefly over his face. "Good."

They skirt main roads and duck through back streets, climb up trellises and crawl over roofs, staying in the few shadows the sun provides. High above, Petra can almost make out the movements of the officers below, a widespread mass of men in uniform scattering in all directions, searching and sniffing, like dogs on the hunt.

They make it to the market area before anyone else does—the streets are almost empty, a few people outside behind stalls or heading into shops, others browsing goods for sale, but it is nearly dinnertime and most should be in their homes or in their cups at local taverns already. She crouches just above the roof of one low inn, eyeing the pipes of the building close by her feet, feeling the hilt of her own blade strapped to her hip. Levi should be on the other side, waiting as well.

In the orange-gold light of the setting sun, everything below is thrown into sharp relief, pale and gray or dark and blue-black, colors indistinct and sound muffled. Beyond the shops and trees and paved streets below is the harbor, wooden posts nailed deep into the water and a few tugs and smaller boats anchored to the wooden boards, two larger ships docked as well with sails unfurled. Most of the sailors are gone, but the lapping of waves and the sparkling blue of the ocean is clear from her vantage point.

For one moment, everything seems peaceful, and she allows herself to think of the next day, fifteen thousand coins more in her figurative pockets and Levi by her side, and the world doesn't seem too terrible then.

The thought has scarcely entered her head when four things happen at once.

She catches a flash of paler gold, a wisp of blond, and she locks eyes across the roofs and streets and stalls with a woman emerging from a shop at the far end of the market, a woodworker's place.

Another movement in the corner of her eye alerts her to officers in blue appearing at the ends of the street, just two on each side, their footsteps loud and panicky in the calm of the small market, alerting bystanders to something wrong.

The blond woman—Annie Leonhardt—stares at her, and nothing about the criminal's expression changes, but she is holding something, something black and gleaming and unfamiliar, and Petra wonders what it is—

Levi grabs her by the back of the shirt and shoves her off the roof.

He follows right after, the two of them tumbling down the sides, shingles stabbing into their limbs and snagging on their clothes, and she manages to cover her head in time as she rolls off the edge and falls luckily only two stories to the ground. There should be nothing to cushion her fall, but somehow Levi has gotten under her, and she doesn't know if the loud crack comes from his bones or hers, something around them or simply her imagination, but he looks dazed, his eyes unfocused as he stares at her, their faces only inches apart.

She tries to move and pain wracks her body, shooting up her spine; if she landed on him and she feels like this, she can't guess how terrible his pain must be right now. But he doesn't look like he is hurt; if anything, his eyes refocus, sharp and clear once more, silver-blue light back in his irises, and there is nothing identifiable in them—but if she had to say, she would call it wonder.

"You're alive," he whispers.

"So are you, and I landed on you," she whispers back. He is far too close; she can see every fleck of gray in his eyes, every one of his eyelashes. "What the hell was that for? You were supposed to be on the other side; she'll get away now—"

"I don't care," he says, and only then does she realize his arms are around her, and they tighten, and he presses his face into her shoulder and breathes, "I won't let her kill you again."

It doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense, and she knows the officers won't be able to catch Leonhardt now, but she won't be able to get to them here either, and the bounty has eluded them for another day—but it's not about the bounty, not anymore, perhaps it never was, and Petra has no idea what that black thing was but it makes her think, inexplicably, of giants and flares and blood and dangerous innovation.

"Levi—"

He is already too close, so she supposes it doesn't really matter when she presses her lips to his cheek in thanks, and when he turns his head to look at her and her mouth lands on the corner of his instead, then once more fully on it, she supposes that doesn't really matter either.

He tastes like salt and copper, like blood, but kissing him is something she's never done before and she instantly likes it. _Never had a chance before, _something in her mind suggests; _making up for lost time,_ something else whispers, but she ignores those voices, silences them and drowns them out with his as he says against her lips, over and over, "It's different this time. We'll do it differently. It'll be different," and she believes him.


End file.
